It sounds like a remainer’s worst nightmare: a museum of Brexit with a grand atrium dominated by the “£350m for the NHS” bus, leading to galleries displaying a selection of Nigel Farage’s louder tweed jackets.

The reality is quite different, not least as the proposed Brexit museum, officially pitched as a “museum of sovereignty”, is thus far nothing more than an idea coupled with an appeal for exhibits.

The brainchild of a small number of people closely connected to Ukip and the wider leave campaign, it has been launched with a website containing details of places where people can donate items, anything from drafts of major speeches to campaign memorabilia and photographs.

While a location for the planned museum is yet to be determined, the organisers stress the project is as much about gathering an archive of material connected to a pivotal moment in the UK’s postwar history that might otherwise be lost.

“It’s going to be a long, slow business,” said Lee Rotherham, a veteran anti-EU campaigner and historian. “It’s too early to move on to the legacy side of Brexit now, but unless we start the process now, some of the material will potentially be gone.”

The hope, he said, would be to collate an academic trove of artefacts, papers and books chronicling not just Brexit, but also the decades of often fringe Eurosceptic activism that preceded it – the bulk of it not preserved in digital form – going back to 1973, when the UK joined the European Economic Community.

This would include input from supporters of EU membership, Rotherham said: “If somebody wanted to donate one of Ted Heath’s hats, I’m sure it would have pride of place. That’s part of the narrative as well.”

According to Gawain Towler, the recently departed head of media for Ukip who is one of the organisers, another motivation is that most academic study on the subject tends to be dominated by the pro-EU side.

“I think if you’re looking for research grants you’re much more likely to get research grants if you subscribe to the same point of view as the people who make the decisions. I’m not saying this is a monstrous thing – it’s just the way it is,” he said.

“I’ve spoken to a couple of academics from the other side of the argument, who think it’s a brilliant idea. There’s a recognition that the academic debate is utterly skewed to the side that didn’t pull it off. That’s not good for comprehension and understanding.”

On the museum, Towler said he had heard from one senior Brexit figure with 15 years’ worth of material in a shed, and he has promised to make a personal contribution. “I will no doubt give my collection of Brexit-related mugs from the last 20 years,” he said. “My favourite one is a ‘William Hague: election winner’ mug, which has got to be one of the most obscure pieces of ephemera I’ve ever found.”

Could a beer glass used by Nigel Farage become a museum exhibit? Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

Farage will also be asked for a donation, Towler said. “I know Nigel is a supporter of the project. I haven’t got anything specific from him yet. Maybe an ashtray and an empty pint glass.”

And yes, there has been some thought given to acquiring the referendum battle bus that transported Boris Johnson and others around the country while bearing the controversial claim that leaving the EU could result in £350m a week for the NHS.

Rotherham said: “It was a hired bus. I thought about that. What we’d have to do is drop a line to the company about when they were looking at selling it. But then of course it would go for a premium, so I’m not so sure that would be value for money.”

While the project is not intended to be a triumphant memorial for the leave side, it has attracted critics.

James McGrory, who heads the anti-Brexit Open Britain group, said: “It is a shame that this initiative did not come earlier because some things have been lost forever to future generations, like Boris Johnson’s moral compass.

“If all else fails, they could just store Nigel Farage in there. He is a relic from a bygone era after all.”